A critical review of local and world news. This blog originally commented on the Moncton Times and Transcript but has enlarged its scope.

Friday, September 1, 2017

Sept.1: Time is running short.

Today, I'll start with a commentary from this day's irving press. (Actually, I have to mention that today's paper has an excellent column on education by Alec Bruce. New Brunswickers really should read this one. It's far better than the other column on education beside it.)

Then there's the main column. It's about health care. This one of by a man who has been a 'director of 5 (count them, five) global corporations.) In other words, he's been a hack for the big kids in the business world. So, obvously, he'd be an expert in medical care. And, of course, he thinks much of it should be privatized. Then those who could afford it would use the private system, and that would reduce waiting times in the public sector.

Like hell it would. It would increase the pressure as more doctors slid into the high priced private system. It would also, and this is what the writer is really after, gradually erode and even do away with public health care. And that's what this column is really all about. Big business wants to own health care as it now owns much of the rest of our society. And the interest of big business has nothing to do with the lives and health of ordinary people. It has to do with making profits for itself.

I was a child in a Canada that had only private medicine. I watched adults die because they couldn't afford a doctor or a hospital. And I watched the anger of the very greedy when medicare came into being.

So why did the irving press publish a big column on health care by a man who has no qualifications to write it? Because the irving press would just love to see the destruction of medicare - and most other social services. Big business thinks only of profits, it's own profits. This may come as a surprise to the chamber of commerce, but big business doesn't give a damn about how the rest of us live or even if we live. Talk about that over coffee in the barn at the Irving Chapel.
The writer was a director of 5 global companies? Sure. Sounds good. It really means he's a kissup for the biggies. The Irving press knows what his column is really all about. And it should know that directors of boards are not necessarily experts on medical care.

But it ran the column anyway. Of course. The irbing pess exists to serve the wealthy, and to keep the rest of us in ignorance.
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In fairness, the front page of Canada&World has two, really important stories. one is about a local farmer who cuts his corn stalks to create a tribute picrture to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Then there's the big story about some guy in St. John who's famous for supporting the local hockey team.

And it doesn't get any better. This paper is an insult to everybody who gets it.
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An, I'm afraid there an even bigger issue lurking in the wings.

Democracy in Canada and the U.S. (and other countries) has been staggering for a long time. Our founding prime minister was as crooked as a snake. And almost all of them have been servants of the wealthy, not of the rest of us. The same is true in the U.S. And Trump, even if he talked of changing things, won't. We are governed by people at the service of the very, very rich.

Actually, that's been a byproduct of capitalism over the last 300 years and more. General Wolfe and Admiral Nelson died in the service of the very rich - as did the men under them. They were building an empire so the wealthy could plunder it - at whatever cost to the soldiers and sailors and the conquered.

As the wealth of the very rich grew, they were named to the aristocracy, and so became the government. And, as voting spread to common people, they held onto the governments by buying them. The crowning touch came in the nineteenth century with the appearance of the cheap newspaper. It was cheap for the buyer, but only the very rich could own it. And they used it for propaganda from the start.

In the 1890s, the British papers used their influence as the only source of information to convince Englishmen that they should be happy to die in service of the monarch (so that the wealthy could loot the goldfields of South Africa.) They did the same in Canada.

American newspapers did the same, lying about the sinking of an American ship to drive the U.S. into a war with Spain in Cuba and then in The Phillipines.. The wealthy then stole part of Cuba (Guantanamo) to give them a base to threaten all of South America and to control approaches to Panama.

The wealthy also took over all the land in Cuba to create sugar fields using the cheap and brutal labour of Cubans to give the American wealthy close to a monopoly on sugar. Later, they would impose a dictatorship - and random murder, theft, and torture for the dictators became common. There's a reason why Cuba rebelled.

But our newspapers and most of our TV and rradio never told that part of the story.

There is no reason to believe that these people would treat us any better. And we may soon find that out.

Big business is now so powerful, it is above most government. In short, Canadian big business is no longer Canadian, and American big business is not longer American. Trade agreements now routinely include clauses that relieve big business of any controls at all. For example, we are acceptiing deals on, say environmental protection, such that Government will have to pay many, many billions to big business to ask it, please, to stop killing people and the environment. And the cases are decided in courts owned by big business, and with judges paid by big business.

In short, big business is on a march to be the uncontrolled, unregulated ruler of the world. That's not an exaggeration

And what will happen? Expect violence, terrible and widespread violence with super nukes and robot warriors. That will do no good to anybody including big business itself. But big business has never shown a capacity to undestand that it will suffer as much of the rest of us from its uncontrolled greed.

It's happening now. The U.S, with Canadian support, has been invading and killing almost without stop since 1945. And, with ownership of almost all our means of gathering news, it murders millions and starves millions, and puts the blame on 'evil' people on the other side.

We are on a terribly slippery slope. And the Donald Trumps of this world don't realize that if we slide down, they will slide with us. Wealth breeds arrogance. And arrogance breeds stupidity.

The other question is when will our churches react to this behaviour (or even notice it?) I am reminded of the inaction of the churches of Italy and Germany in World War 2. (There's a book on that, "Hitler and the Vatican". It's a tough read - but interesting.)
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Here's a sample of what's happening in these trade agreements. But don't look for news about this in the irving press.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/15e395f51e4b1de2

And, on Nov. 11, remember. This world today is not what we told those who fought and died for us in two world wars that they were fighting for.
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Why have Trump an other U.S. presidents harped on the theme that Iran has an illegal nuclear weapons programme? They know it's not true. And the UN has repeatedly said it's not true. It's because the U.S. wants control over Iran oil. It has never forgiven Iran for kicking out the dictator that American oil billionaires imposed on it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/31/iran-nuclear-deal-trump-un
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And, of course, we take some disasters more seriously than others.

The even bigger story is that we are going to face much, much bigger disasters as climate change takes hold. For a gentle start, some 8,500 refugees have drowned in the Mediterranean in recent years. This is all going to get much, much worse - and we are nowhere close to even thinking about it.
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Haitians are trying to flee from the horror that is Haiti and, unwelcome in the U.S., are trying to get to Canada. And Trudeau, despite his smooth-talking image, is pulling out the welcome mat to cut them off. For a over a century, American capitalism has treated Haitians with animal savagery. What's not generally known is that Canadian capitalists have been murderous bastards, too, in Haiti.

Such a story as this always reminds me of Norbert Cunningham of the irving press who frequently credits the very wealthy with spreading wealth to all of us. (He never calls them capitalists, though. That's a dirty word.) In fact, capitalists do not spread wealth except among themselves. For centuries, they have spread deep poverty and hunger and torture and death all over the world - especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

And even in the western world they have taken far, far more than they have given. That's why poverty is on the rise.
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The U.S. has been just about played out of the game in Syria. And that may spread to Latin America. For over a century, American capitalism has bullied, beaten, impoverished and murdered the people of Latin America. (And, yes, with Canadian help.)

It's too early to make predictions. But the U.S. could soon find itself facing many Syrias in Latin America.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47720.htm
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The UN was to work toward a world without nuclear weapons. But Trudeau has been too busy kissing Trump's rear end to support the UN.

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2017/09/canada-shies-away-un-treaty-ban-nuclear-weapons-abandoning-nuclear-nag-reputation
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Here's an item that is (relatively) kind to the irvings and their newspapers.

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/07/06/news/irvings-media-monopoly-and-its-consequences
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There is much misunderstanding of what Israel is. Contrary to popular belief, most Jews of European origins are NOT the descendants of the ancient Jews of Israel. They are called Ahkenazi Jews, and they and the hereditary Jews of Israel don't like each other very much.

And the Palestinians, a people who did no harm to Jews, are getting punished - largely by the Ashkenazi - for what the Euopeans (and Canadians and Americans) did to the Jews.

http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/31/the-zionist-exception/

Israel, with U.S. money, has taken a very aggressive stance not only against Palestinians but also against Iranians, Lebanese and Syrians. And Isael has a large nuclear arsenal.

Israel treats Judaism as a race. And that is was Hitler did, too. But Judaism is a faith, not a race of any sort.

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Most of our news media seem not to have noticed. But there are huge numbers of refugees in the world, some fleeing wars and some fleeing climate change (and watch for the latter figure to rise in the U.S).

What are we going to do? Kill them? Let them drown? Make more refugees by building more pipelines? So far, our actions haven't helped at all. The U.S. kicks them out. Trudeau will soon follow suit. (And, if he doesn't. expect serious riots in some Canadian cities - starting with Montreal.) Europe lets them drown in the Mediterannean; and if they don't, it sticks them in tents in vile camps, and leaves them there for the winter.

https://www.undispatch.com/climate-refugees-explained/
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We live in a world that is changing, and changing very rapidly. We don't have the time to play footsie with oil barons and other forms of evil and greed. Indeed, it may be essential to do what we said we would do in 1945 - to create the beginnings of a world government with the UN.

We have, instead, torn off in a frenzy of making the rich unspeakably and unendingly richer. The result has been seventy years of wars, near-wars, rebellions, starvation, rising poverty ... and a steady increase in the number and types of weapons of mass destruction. We have effectively handed over control of the world not to the best qualified but to the greediest among us. Neither we nor they can survive that.

And I know of no political party in Canada or elsewhere that has anything resembling an adequate plan to deal with that.

And the Christian churches? They are reduced to the spectacle of the Irving Chapel with the best preachers that money can buy, with 'special' music, and coffee in the barn. Yep. Everybody's there.
Except Jesus.

1 comment:

http://harlemworldmag.com/op-ed-democracy-abroad-hypocrisy-home-learned-nothing-history/. A good article that explains Americas weakness and how it affects the American foreign policy . The article is about Trump, but Trump is just a simplified byproduct of American culture. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-trump-illusion-and-the-american-culture-war_us_590cdbd8e4b046ea176aeb0e. This guy has a good point The chickens have come home to roost, as they say. Another article on American culture and how we got a Trump for residenthttps://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/18/15654566/trump-toddler

And understanding the historical relationship between religion and business helps us figure out how Trump got the so called white evangelical vote despite the fact that he obviously isn't a follower of Jesus - and neither are most white evangelicals, apparently.https://www.ft.com/content/b41d0ee6-1e96-11e7-b7d3-163f5a7f229c

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About Me

born into poverty in Montreal. (1933 was a bad year to be born.) Kicked out of school in grade 11. Became factory hand, office boy.
Did a general BA, mostly at night at Sir George Williams University, and partly while a youth worker for YMCA, camps, etc. Then teacher training at McGill.
Taught gradea 7 to 11 for six years. Loved it.
Quit to do MA at Acadia, then PhD (History) at Queen's.
Taught history three years at UPEI, then some 35 years at Concordia U in Montreal.
Loved the teaching. Thought the profs had more pompous and useless asses among then than is really desirable outside a zoo.
work experience:
factory, office,social group work, office,camp director, teacher.
Radio - c. 3000 broadcasts, mostly current events.
TV - many hundred appearances, mostly commentaries.
Film - some writing, advising, voice-overs.
Writing - no count, some hundreds. Some academic, but mostly for popular market, and ranging from short stories to stories to newspaper and magazine columns to history books.
professional speaker - close to 2000.
Awards for the above? yep